SARAH: "If you're getting a new horse,
how do you figure out what to feed?"
DR LYDIA GRAY: It's such a simple but practical question.
And what's interesting is, I just helped a friend do this.
And it was harder than I thought, so glad you asked it.
I think the first step is finding out
what the horse ate before.
Because we know, you want to keep feed the same.
And by feed, I'm talking about the hay, as well as the grain.
So as much as you can, keep everything the same.
SARAH: And why is that important?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Because it's been shown that changing of hay
increases colic risk by a factor of 10,
and changing grain increases colic risk by a factor of five.
SARAH: And that changing hay doesn't
mean like you moved across the country,
and now you're getting a totally different type of hay.
It's like even from the same field, a couple of months
later.
It's a big deal.
DR LYDIA GRAY: The microorganisms
in the gut that do the majority of the digesting,
they just get shocked.
They do not like surprises.
So no balloons, no, none of that.
They just keep it the same.
Same.
So that's the first step.
And then I'm calculating any horse's diet.
I look at the forage first.
And make sure they're getting 1% to 2% of their body weight
each day in high quality forage.
And then I complete and balance the diet.
SARAH: What are some examples of a high quality forage?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Well, it should be clean and free
of dust and mold.
So that's one criteria of quality.
But the other is, just that it's not straw like.
It's not completely stemmy.
But it's got some leaves, because that's
where their nutrition is.
It's got a fair amount of protein.
Like you don't want hay that is less than 10% protein.
You want hay that has some protein in it as well as it's
not been sitting around for two, three, four years.
But it's green, and fluffy, and bright.
And it's got still some vitamins and minerals in it.
So those are the quality issues I look at.
SARAH: And so it's hay, and pasture.
Anything else that people can lump into the category
of thinking forage first?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Depending on where you live,
you may have to stretch your hay.
And there are some commercial products that do that.
Beet pulp is sort of a bridge between forage and grain.
So it does have a good fiber content that's available.
I feel like I'm missing something you were thinking of.
SARAH: No, I mean you kind of got there
with the hay stretcher and the beet pulp,
was the other example that I think people don't often
think of, when they're thinking of how
to get myself more forage.
Because hay can be expensive.
And with droughts, hay can be hard to come by.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Right.
And then the quality, based on the weather,
the quality can be not so good.
So you may have to stretch every once
in a while, and that that's OK.
SARAH: OK, so forage first.
Where are we are off to next?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Well then you complete and balance the diet.
And your options there are something,
if you have a really good hay, then
you might just need a multi-vitamin mineral
supplement.
That's great.
And if you think your hay may be not so high in protein,
maybe you had it analyzed.
Then a ration balancer is also a good choice.
You can go up the rung of the ladder again
to a fortified grain.
But then you have to feed the full serving that the bag says.
And even a complete feed, typically thought
of as senior feed, is an option.
And then you look at, all along, you've
been assessing the body condition score.
And maybe even putting a weight tape on every week or two.
And you're like, is he maintaining his weight
and condition with his new place he's
at and the work he's doing?
Or is he gaining weight, or losing weight?
And so you use that information, and you adjust the diet.
You just started this diet based on well,
this calculates out right.
Well, we'll see how it actually works on the horse.
So then you either add some calories in,
and you can do that with the beet pulp, I like for that.
You can add calories.
Oats is a good way to add some oats when you need them,
and decrease.
There's supplements like fat that help with weight gain.
Or you may need to back the horse off a little bit.
So maybe you were feeding a fortified grain,
but the horse is gaining weight.
Back off to a ration balancer.
Back off to a multi-vitamin.
Maybe add-- maybe slow down the eating,
with like a small hole hay net, or a slow hay feeder.
So you start with something that works out on paper,
and then you adjust based on the feedback
you're getting from the horse.
SARAH: And the physical feedback,
because the emotional feedback will always be feed me more.
DR LYDIA GRAY: More food, more treats, yeah.
SARAH: So there's a lot of things
that we touched on there that you and I talk about
and feeding horses a lot.
It's something we're very passionate about here
at SmartPak.
And so there's a couple of things that we can talk about.
We could spend hours and hours on this subject alone.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yes.
SARAH: So I just want to call out a couple of things
that we're going to have in the description for you.
One is a blog about how to read your feed label.
Dr Gray talked about making sure that you're feeding
the full serving on the bag.
A lot of people don't even know that grain has a serving size,
and it's based on your horse's weight.
So we've got a blog for that.
The second one that we talked about
is, you talked about having your hay analyzed.
And I'm assuming you don't mean lying on the couch,
and talking about its problems?
How do you get your hay analyzed?
DR LYDIA GRAY: There are a couple
of places in the country you can send samples of hay.
They tell you how to sample.
You do need a special device.
But locally, you can get that from your feed store,
or county extension agent.
And then you send to these labs, and they analyze it
for proteins, and carbohydrates, and vitamins and minerals.
And there's different panels you can pay for.
They range in price.
And then it comes back, and then you know what quality of hay
you have.
And then what is needed to complete and balance it.
Like, I don't need anything, because it's super hay.
Or I need a pretty extensive fortified grain,
because this hay is really just like fiber, and that's it.
SARAH: When you said I don't eat anything, I have a super hay,
I thought you were just bragging.
But then I realized it was just an example.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
DR LYDIA GRAY: That's the hay talking.
SARAH: Last but not least, we have body condition scoring.
So that's when Dr Gray, you talked about the feedback
that your horse is giving you.
And body condition scoring, it's hard to get your horse
to stand on a bathroom scale without breaking it.
So body condition scoring lets you
keep tabs on how your horse is doing, in terms
of his overall fat cover.
And we've got a whole bunch of great content
about that, as well.
DR LYDIA GRAY: I think there's articles and video, right?
SARAH: Oh, yeah.
We've got a lot going on.
So those will all be down in the description for you.
Wow, great questions.
So exciting.
DR LYDIA GRAY: It seems so simple, and it was so short.
But it just covered so many areas.
SARAH: Yeah.